Congress leaders pick Sonia Gandhi as interim president

Sonia Gandhi leaves after the CWC meeting in New Delhi on Saturday. (PTI)

New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi was back at the helm of the party on Saturday after a day-long marathon meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the party’s highest decision making body.

Ms Gandhi would be the interim president of the party till the AICC elects a new president, general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal announced at a late night press conference on Saturday.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that she was the “best weapon” the party had in these “trying circumstances” and thus the CWC had decided on her name.

The taking over of the mantle by Ms Gandhi can be seen to be a compromise arrived at by the party’s so called old guard and new guard which were stuck on their own choices.

While Mukul Wasnik’s name was doing the rounds till Friday, a late evening meeting called by Mr Venugopal on Friday ostensibly to discuss the abrogation of Article 370 had set the agenda for Saturday’s CWC with Mr Gandhi asking all the CLP leaders, state in-charges, PCC presidents and MPs to stay back and join the deliberations before the CWC Saturday morning.